According to the curly headed, wide mouthed Canadian songstress, Alanis Morissette, irony can be defined by rain on your wedding day or a free ride when you've already paid. I'd argue with her on both counts and suggest that the former is to simply ignore the long range weather forecast and the latter is just bad timing. I reckon I could have a go at outdoing her on the ironic front.

How about this:

You discover that a colleague that holds a senior position to you is taking part in the Three Peaks Race. I'm talking the Ben Nevis/Scafell Pike/Snowdon one rather than the real challenge in Yorkshire. He looks for advice on various hill walking matters and eventually arrives at the subject of dealing with blisters. Being a generous kind of fella you provide him with advice on taping one's feet and give him a large amount of the sports tape you've acquired over the years. Despite the fact that you yourself have a major physical challenge looming that in the past has caused blisters that look not unlike Marty Feldman's eyeballs.

Fast forward to last Sunday and you're walking through Fort William high street with your support crew treading gingerly on Marty Feldman's eyeballs because you had insufficient sports tape to make a significant impact on the blister prevention front in the West Highland Way Race.

Then, just to prove it really is a small world, the same senior colleague appears in front of you bounding along on feet made a size larger due to the abundance of sports tape covering his toes.

You introduce him to your support crew as the recipient of your largesse. And as the senior colleague that suspended you shortly after trousering all your sports tape.

Now, Alanis, forget having a black fly in your Chardonnay, have a read of the event above.... that's ironic.

Or how about this?

Despite being suspended you seek permission to enter your workplace in order to finish some outstanding work that failed to get completed due to being unceremoniously marched off the premises some weeks before. You're granted said permission and arrive at the place that has felt like home for the past fourteen years. After being greeted by colleagues and engaging in the normal type of banter associated with that profession ('You're back!!! I didn't realise we had a new cleaner!' and 'That's a bit off isn't it? Making you come in to collect your P45!' etc, etc) you notice a letter addressed to you in the mail tray.

You open it to discover it's a letter of congratulations from your senior colleague acknowledging the fact that through your hard work and personnel management skills you've reduced the levels of sickness absence in your workplace.

Now, Alanis, forget ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, have a read of the event above.... that's ironic.

Anyway, the blisters are healing well and my absence from my workplace has had little impact on attendance numbers due to my hard work in ensuring we're fully staffed. So I'll use these reasonably healthy feet and abundance of time wisely and head out the door to the running club. But before I go I should make a mention of the comments section of this blog. I've always felt it appropriate to allow anyone to comment in anyway they wish.

It's called freedom of speech (!!!!!).

But I've had to take the decision to moderate all comments due to an avalanche of spam. I'm not sure freedom of speech extends to receiving unsolicited advice on how I can enlarge my penis using some king of vacuum pump; how to unlock an I-Phone 4; or where the best strip joints are in Israel (honest!).

I just hope my credit card isn't raided when they take the money for the vacuum pump.